


Content

by Esmenet



Category: Chrestomanci - Jones
Genre: Gen, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-21
Updated: 2009-12-21
Packaged: 2017-10-04 20:40:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,059
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/33926
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Esmenet/pseuds/Esmenet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Christopher is getting old.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Content

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Rhap-chan (possibilityleft)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/possibilityleft/gifts).



> Compliant with _The Pinhoe Egg_. No real spoilers, but a couple details might be a bit confusing to people who haven't read it.

Christopher doesn't spirit travel any more, to tell the truth. Oh, sometimes he does -- now and again he finds himself slipping out of bed and into the Place Between. (Which he should probably be calling the World Edge, but it's his head and he can call things what he wants.) But that's mostly a thing of the past. He has too much to do now, too much paperwork to read, too many people he needs to spend his time with, and too little time to sleep. He has no extra room in his schedule for walking around the Related Worlds.

But sometimes he does it anyway, of course.

\--

Tonight he goes back to Series Seven, and arrives near the remains of what once had been Stallery. It's all fallen in now, and as bad as all the other ruins he and Conrad had run through. But as he approaches it he sees men with tools hammering away.

"Hey! What _are_ you doing?" Christopher calls, jogging through the remains of the gardens.

One of the workmen looks up, annoyed. "Working! What does it look like?"

"Ah. What are you working _on_, then?" he asks, with genuine curiosity.

The man who answered him grunts. "New theatre. Now, be off with you!"

Christopher smiles at him vaguely. "Oh. Can I help, then?" He pushes a little at the man to think of him as someone useful, someone reliable who just doesn't happen to be doing anything at the moment.

Reluctantly, the man nods. "Johnson! Get over here and keep an eye out on the new man."

Christopher stays for several hours, and learns that the new theatre is being built in honour of the new king, the first play performed in it will be a new smash hit called _The Nine-Lived Enchanter_, and that one of the lead roles will be played by Conrad Tesdinic.

When he wakes that morning he is smiling.

\--

Christopher's hair is greyer now, and his magic perhaps a little weaker than it used to be. He wonders sometimes if his joints are going to start aching, too, or if that can be stopped with magic.

He's getting old, he really is. It doesn't seem so long ago that he was the same age as Cat; the same age as his own children. Not long ago at all, only a couple decades . . . Christopher laughs to himself as he catches this train of thought. He really isn't so old, only forty-three -- and besides, is that really such a bad thing? He's looking forward to seeing what life will be like thirty years from now.

\--

Not too long after, Conrad comes to visit. He hasn't been in the castle for almost ten years, and it's been almost five since Christopher last saw him. He arrives with one small suitcase full of papers and an army of complaints. "It's terrible," he says. "No sooner does one crisis get resolved than another pops up, magical or mundane. This is the first time in _years_ I've had some time to relax." Christopher does his best to look sympathetic.

Cat and Conrad take to each other immediately, of course. Christopher can already hear Conrad ripping his character to shreds. (Which is all right really -- Millie does it every so often, and it's rather refreshing.) They bond over horses, and Cat promises to make sure he gets to meet Joe and Marianne. Klartch is off with some of the staff in Series Two at the moment, or Christopher is sure he'd be chattering away too.

Conrad's an actor now, as well as a government official. "It's terrible," Conrad says again, over dinner. "They're making me play _you_. If I don't look out I'll start giving everyone vague looks and superior smiles."

"It could only improve things, surely?"

Conrad whacks him on the shoulder, and does it again a few minutes later when Christopher refers to him as 'Grant'. "You'd think after nearly thirty years you could remember my real name!"

Millie just giggles at them, although the children give them all strange looks.

\--

Series Five is just as fantastic as he remembers it, full of water and heat and beauty. The mermaids laugh at him, but politely refrain from splashing his good blue suit. He likes mermaids -- they're generally very pleasant people, if a bit fishy. He has business elsewhere today, though. Christopher walks along the beach until he comes to a little white-painted house, and knocks on the door.

"Hello," he says when it opens. "It's good to see you again, Tacroy."

Mordecai Roberts is an elderly man now, but his eyes are still bright. Christopher really has missed him, and only now realises how much. He grumbles good-naturedly about warning people when you're going to be visiting, but he lets Christopher in and gives him a glass of something delicious.

"Now why are you here at this hour?" he asks, eyes crinkling up.

"Jason has expressed a wish for a sample of sapient pearwood tree, and his regrets that he is unable to go searching himself. I thought I'd do him a favour, you see." Christopher pauses for a sip of something that is definitely not wine but probably not juice. "And I knew you were vacationing in the area, of course."

"Of course," Tacroy says dryly.

They talk for as long as Christopher can stay, about little things and large ones. When he explains about dwimmer, Tacroy's face screws up thoughtfully. "So that's it! They call it ambient life-force here, and I never could quite get a hold on what they were talking about. It seems to be quite different from ordinary magic." Later, he shows Christopher where to find a sapient pearwood seedling, and tells him that he hopes to be able to visit the castle for the next cricket-season.

\--

Christopher loves being Chrestomanci. He loves ordering people around and giving them vague looks and using magic that really _does_ things and wearing fantastic clothes and forgetting people's names. It's still wonderful, after all these years. Anything else he could have ended up doing wouldn't be half as much fun, and he knows -- selfish, but it's true -- that he really is the best man for the job. Poor Cat will have to stay just Cat until Christopher dies for the last time, because he really couldn't give this up for _anything_.

**Author's Note:**

> This story gave me so much trouble, and I'm still not entirely happy with it. Making things flow isn't my strong suit, and it shows.
> 
> I'm kind of proud of it anyway.


End file.
